


Niris's War

by iridiah



Series: Niris Hazan [1]
Category: World of Warcraft
Genre: Aftermath of Violence, Animal Death, Canon-Typical Violence, Cobalt Company, F/M, Flashbacks, Grief/Mourning, Miscarriage, Pre-World of Warcraft, Pregnancy, Trauma, the first war
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-01
Updated: 2021-03-01
Packaged: 2021-03-13 18:28:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,391
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29780316
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/iridiah/pseuds/iridiah
Summary: Twenty-five years after the First War, Niris Hazan, a Northshire Abbey cleric and healer, still bears invisible scars.
Series: Niris Hazan [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2188818
Kudos: 1





	Niris's War

She finished printing the tenth label in her neat, spiky handwriting -- _Swiftthistle Tincture, 2/592_ \-- and set the pen aside to take up the needle and its waxed-twine thread. She punctured a tidy hole in the first label she’d written, its ink now dry, and drew the thread through the little card before pushing the needle through a piece of cork. With her garden shears, she snipped the twine and tied a neat loop, securing tag to cork, and then pressed the cork into the first of the green-glass bottles arrayed before her.

It was small, fussy work, and her back ached from stooping and standing in the garden rows all morning, and three of her fingertips had gone tingling-numb from contact with the thistle tincture, but it was also pleasantly rote, her mind free while her fingers busied, and the green, astringent smell of the swiftthistle eased her queasy stomach.

“Ach, priestess,” a man’s voice breathed against her ear, and a broad hand snaked around her waist to rest snug against her belly. “I beg aid of ye, I’m most turrible injur’t.”

She smiled but didn't turn around. “Is that so? What’s the nature of your complaint, then?”

“A lass,” he moaned, and bit the edge of her ear gently. “I fear she’s done me ta death, miss, stole t' heart right out me chest.”

Niris jabbed back with an elbow and was rewarded with solid contact and a startled _uff!_ “Well, there’s nothing that can be done for such a case. Perhaps you should have guarded it more carefully, sir.”

He moved around her to lean back against the worktable at her side, arms folded across his broad chest, grinning. “On’y I’d nae idea t'ere was such bandits in the sout', miss. A priestess o’ the Light, an’ all!”

She cast him a sidelong glance without lifting her head, and smiled. “You’re a fool, Ruari Keane.”

“Aye, in many tings. But ne’er in this one. Gie us a kiss, darlin’.” He leaned toward her, hazel eyes glinting merrily beneath an untidy tumble of black curls. 

“You need a haircut,” she told him tartly, but tipped her head to offer her cheek.

He declined the proffered cheek and kissed the side of her throat instead, his mouth hot against her pulse. “Ye can do it for me wi’ t'ey shears o’ yours. Later,” he murmured warmly against her skin.

“I’m not your _wife_ , man,” Niris told him, but there was laughter in her voice. He wrapped his hands around her hips and drew her close, and she leaned drowsily against him, even as her hands and needle found the next little cork-piece on the worktable.

“Nae yet,” he promised her, low-voiced. His hand found her belly again. “But nae long now. Ye’ll be an honest woman afore t' summer's done, Miss Hazan. _Missus Keane.”_

__

“I’ve never been anything _but_ an honest woman,” she told him, and rested her head on his shoulder. He smelled of tobacco and horse.

__

“Ach. Bandit,” he scolded gently, and kissed her hair.

__

“Ruffian,” she chastised, and felt the gentle rumble of laughter in his chest. She smiled again.

__

#

__

The needle slips in her grasp and sinks into the pad of her thumb rather than the cork she holds. “ _Blast_ ,” she hisses, and drops the cork to lift the offended digit, pearling blood, to her mouth. She tastes iron, mingled with the warm spice of the goldthorn oil she’s been bottling.

__

The girl beside her looks up timidly. “All right, miss?”

__

Niris nods, glad of an excuse for the hot prickle behind her eyes. She blinks it away. “Fine,” she says. “Give me a scrap of that linen, will you? Don’t want blood on the tags.”

__

“Yes’m.” The novice leans across the worktable to collect a roll of bandage, and tears a strip from its end.

__

“Thank you,” Niris tells her, and wraps her thumb neatly. “Too bloody dark at this hour for my old eyes,” she says, and the girl just nods dutifully at her.

__

#

__

The riderless horse careened wild-eyed through the Abbey gate, blown and lathered, its gait uneven and its empty saddle twisted to the side. All heads in the yard turned.

__

Niris didn’t know whether she was the first to recognize the animal, but she was the first to react. She dropped her garden basket and ran, stumbling heedless through the loamy soft rows of sprouting greens, the skirts of her robes gathered in clenched fists. She’d grown ungainly already, but she still moved faster than the gawkers around her. 

__

“Catch him!” she screamed at a startled footman. “Catch him, man!” But the horse was done running and dropped its head, sides heaving. The footman jogged belatedly over to grab its trailing reins.

__

“Where are the rest?” Niris demanded of the blank-staring footman, and put out a hand to lean and catch her own breath against the steaming horse’s shoulder. “ _Where are the scouts? Six_ of them went out.”

__

“I don’t -- miss, I don’t --” the man stammered, but Niris had already straightened to examine the horse. The saddle-girth had been partly cut through, a ragged-edged slice, and her fingers found the matching gash in the horse’s belly a moment later and came away red. The exhausted animal didn’t so much as twitch.

__

There was blood on the saddle as well. _Not much_ , she told herself, as her stomach knotted nauseously. _It isn’t much_. 

__

She wheeled back on the footman. “Patrols!” she cried at him. “Where are the rest? We need to send men!”

__

The man was already shaking his head, eyes round. “Miss, I’m just -- I’m not _in charge_ \--”

__

“What’s this?” a man’s voice called, and Niris turned to see Captain Ames striding toward her, his face grim-set.

__

“The scouts, sir!” She had to catch her breath again, and stood a moment with her hand pressed to her ribcage. “The northerners, Fox Company. A party of them rode out this morning, to sweep the forest north of Goldshire. There were reports yesterday --”

__

“I know the reports,” he cut her off, and turned his back on her to bark across the silent yard, “To arms! Men and horses, to arms!”

__

“Sir,” said Niris. Her voice was faint to her own ears, muffled beneath a ringing. “The scouts.”

__

The Captain cast a look back at her, took her in wordlessly for a moment. “We’ll do our best, miss,” he told her. There was no promise in either his voice or his gaze.

__

Beside them, the horse staggered and folded down onto its side in the dirt. Its breath rasped, blood-flecked foam in its nostrils.

__

“Done,” the Captain told the footman, who still stood holding the reins stupidly. “Put the poor beast out of its misery and then get your shield, soldier.”

__

#

__

“Priestess?”

__

Niris looks up at the uncertain inquiry, blinking away from the black loam loose between her fingers. The young blond novice is staring at her.

__

She sits back on her haunches and drags the back of her wrist across her gleaming forehead, finds a short smile for the boy. “Yes? Sorry, I wasn’t listening.”

__

“Oh,” he says. “I just -- is this one a weed?” He holds up the root-torn vine he’s just tugged out of the row, its young spade-shaped leaves already wilting around their edges.

__

Niris sighs at him. “Dig it back in quick, and hope you didn’t do it too much harm. You know perfectly well what a melon vine looks like, Brother Martin.”

__

The boy flushes to his ears, nods, and bends back over his row. Niris brushes the soil off between her hands and casts a glance toward the Abbey gate, where long, sunset shadows stretch tranquilly in the mellow afternoon light.

__

#

__

“Bar the gates!” a man roared. The clamor in the yard was tremendous, a thunder of hooves and hoarse voices, shrieking horses and shouting men. “Bar the gates!” Torchlight flickered.

__

“Niris, don’t,” said Aurella, putting a hand on her shoulder to stay her. “You need to sit.” 

__

Niris shook her off and shoved her way through the knot of their fellow clerics in the corridor. 

__

Captain Ames had lost his helmet and blood ran freely from a gash above his right eye, but he sat tall on his restlessly-circling horse, still in command of the yard. “Bar the gates and man the wall!” he bellowed, and soldiers were already flinging themselves from horseback to obey. A troop of disheveled longbowmen ran past, on their way from the temporary barracks to the wall, many of them only half-armored and still bleary with sleep. 

__

The uneven light that shivered in the yard wasn’t torchlight, Niris realized. There were trees burning in the nighttime forest beyond the Abbey wall.

__

“Captain!” she called, and Ames turned toward her. His face went hard and blank, and Niris felt that she might vomit. She knotted her fists against her belly. “I’m sorry, miss,” he called back, and urged his horse toward her. “We collected some -- remains, but not -- it’s not a thing you’ll want to see,” he told her.

__

But Niris had already spotted the two stained men across the yard lugging a heavy canvas burden between them. The Captain attempted to maneuver his horse into her way, said something else sharp and stern, but Niris pushed around him and ran.

__

She reached them just as the two men unfolded the canvas, and teetered unsteadily for a moment at its edge, staring at the things it contained. Then she turned and her knees gave out abruptly beneath her. She dropped to all fours and crawled away to the margin of grass to throw up until she couldn’t.

__

#

__

“Sister,” a voice says quietly at her elbow, and Niris is shaken from reverie. “Are you here?” Elderly Sister Maida peers rheumily up at her.

__

“What? Yes,” says Niris, and towels her hands off briskly. “Of course I am.” She lowers her voice to direct, “Keep this basin full and warm. I’ll want clean linen and a fresh jar of the peacebloom salve, and send someone for the alcohol-jar with my instruments. Keep that out of sight by the door and pray we don’t need it.” She turns toward the strain-faced young woman on the bed, who bends forward and clutches her heavy belly, breath hissing through her teeth. 

__

Niris smiles and moves toward her, raising her voice again. “Very nice, Elvah, you’re perfectly on time. You keep breathing, duck, but let’s see if we can’t help you to relax more, yes? I know you want to bear down, but the little one’s not ready for that just yet.” To one of the novices beside the bed she says, “Take down her blouse and rub her back, as I showed you.”

__

She crouches before the bed and lifts the young woman’s hands gently but firmly away from her belly, squeezes them in her own. “You’re going to do this bravely, and we’ll meet your son before dawn, all right?”

__

The woman nods, squeezing her eyes shut, and Niris pats one of her hands. “Good girl. You’re doing so well already.”

__

#

__

She didn’t know how she’d gotten onto the wall, didn’t know how she’d found a place in the longbowmen’s line; all she knew was the shadow that screamed with her voice, the scalding dark that suffocated her until she let it erupt, as uncontrollable as vomit, as arterial blood. It shrieked like a whirlwind through the firelit dark. 

__

Another of the bestial invaders below staggered and fell, its tusked face a mask of uncomprehending rage and horror, blood seeping like darkness from behind its eyes. Niris flung out a white-knuckled hand to scream a Word at the one behind it. 

__

“Damned fool girl!” a man bellowed, and an arm grappled her from behind. “Get _down!_ ”

__

She turned and clawed blindly -- with her nails, not the shadow -- at the man who held her, and he reeled back briefly.

__

“Little _bitch_ ,” Captain Ames spat, and seized her again, shaking her hard. “Come _down_ from here, look about you!”

__

Niris did, the black haze ebbing. She stood alone now, the bodies of archers slumped and shattered around her.

__

“Come _down_ ,” the Captain shouted again, dragging her from the wall’s edge. Niris fought him, writhing and scratching, until he slapped her. “Girl,” he said, his voice ragged at the edge. “You’re bleeding.” 

__

“I don’t _care_ ,” cried Niris, and then saw the look in his eyes and realized what he meant. She looked down and saw the skirt of her robe plastered redly to her thighs. “Oh -- _Light_.” Her knees gave out again. 

__

The Captain caught her up and carried her toward the stairs.

__

“No,” she said, “Stop,” but she was crying and the words came out as senseless sobs. “Stop it.”

__

“I’m sorry, miss,” the Captain said grimly, not looking down at her. His profile against the firelight was as broken a thing as Niris had ever seen. “I’m sorry. It’s been -- a hard night. For all.”

__

“Please,” begged Niris, through salt and snot. “ _Please_. Stop it.”

__

“I know,” he said, and set her down before the Abbey door. Aurella, white-faced and tear-streaked, came flying out with two others at her heels, already reaching for her, but Niris couldn’t stand under her own power and sat down hard in the dirt, collapsing like a spent horse. “I know,” the Captain said again, looking down at her. “But too late now, I think. Now we fall back, and hold what we can.”

__

#

__

“Miss?” a young woman’s voice whispers, and Niris looks up from the little bundle in her arms, her eyes brimming.

__

The new mother, her hair plastered with sweat to her flushed face, pushes herself upright against the pillows. “Is he -- all right?”

__

“Oh, yes,” says Niris, and smiles brilliantly through her tears. “He’s perfect, darling. Here, now. Carefully.” She eases the warm bundle into his mother’s arms, and the infant squirms instinctively, nosing toward his mother’s skin. “You hold on to him,” Niris whispers to the woman, and cups a gentle hand behind the soft little skull, strokes the wet and silken hair. “Not too tightly now, all right? But you hold on to him, like so.”

__

The mother bites her lip and nods, and cradles the baby’s head against her chest. Her eyes close on a soundless sigh.

__

“Good girl,” Niris says, and stands and turns away.

__

__


End file.
